Om den pedagogiska paradoxen som utgångspunkt för forskning

Den pedagogiska paradoxen, som uppstår när studenter ska styras till att inte låta sig styras, aktualiseras varje gång målet om kritiskt tänkande uttolkas och definieras inom utbildningsvärlden. Den analytiska utgångspunkten i den pe-dagogiska paradoxen har öppnat för studiet av vad jag här har kallat för peda-gogiska motsättningar, vilka alltså inte är dilemman eller praktiska hinder för undervisning, utan inkonsekvenser och antagonismer som är inneboende i varje pedagogik som syftar till frihet från styrning. Pedagogiska motsättningar kan endast undgås genom a) att undervisningens styrning genom en viss verk-lighetsbeskrivning framställs som naturlig, och denna verkverk-lighetsbeskrivning är då inte ett legitimt föremål för vad som kan kallas ett ”konstruktivt” kritiskt tänkande, ett tänkande som därmed inte längre är kritiskt (metapragmatiskt) utan målstyrt; eller b) att man undergräver eller förnekar legitimiteten i den pedagogiska styrningen, vilket då också relativiserar och underminerar aukto-riteten i de former för kritiskt tänkande som undervisningen förmedlar. Av-handlingen visar att det första alternativet ofta har präglat försöken att uttyda det kritiska tänkandets mening: pedagogiska idéer om kritiskt tänkande sätter gränser för det kritiska tänkandet, i form av mer eller mindre uttalade kriterier för vilka typer av reflektioner som är giltiga och legitima. Begränsningar av tänkandet behöver visserligen inte bli ett problem för deltagarna i ett utbild-ningssammanhang; utbildningens former sätter ramar för reflexiviteten, och om dessa ramar uppfattas som naturliga kan en konsensus om vad som är rim-ligt och realistiskt infinna sig. Men det kan alltid uppstå situationer där sådana former rasar samman och oenighet om utbildningens grundläggande logik uppstår, i synnerhet om föremålet för undervisningen är just olika former av metapragmatisk reflektion. Sådana situationer, som skulle kunna visa sig i et-nografiska klassrumsanalyser, har här inte undersökts, utan endast betraktats som en möjlig konsekvens av de pedagogiska begränsningarnas i grunden godtyckliga natur.

En angelägen uppgift för pedagogisk forskning vore att empiriskt studera kopplingen mellan mål som kritiskt tänkande och själva undervisningskons-ten. Idén att organisera särskilda utbildningsinsatser inriktade mot målet om kritiskt tänkande, vilket leder till den paradoxala befallningen ”Låt dig inte bli styrd!”, aktualiserar frågan om förhållandet mellan undervisning och katego-rier som rationalitet och subjektivitet. Paradoxala befallningar kan i någon mån vara rationella, då de kan leda till de tillstånd de syftar till, men det sker då inte genom den avsedda mekanismen, vilket Jon Elster beskrivit som att en paradoxal befallning kan uppfyllas utan att följas.526 Elsters slutsats är emel-lertid att det likväl är oklart vilka konsekvenser utöver de avsedda denna (o)lo-gik kan leda till:

It is puzzling and thought-provoking that certain paradoxical instructions ap-pear both on the road to wisdom and as the agency of madness. On the double-bind theory a person can be driven into schizophrenia by trying to satisfy im-possible and contradictory demands, one important class of which are the prag-matically contradictory commands. The practice of Zen employs similar means, but for the purpose of liberating the person from the obsession with instrumental rationality and the habit of relating everything to the self. The command to be spontaneous, when issued by a nagging spouse, will get you into a fix; when issued by a Zen master it could get you out of one.527

Om kritiskt tänkande är vad man med Elster kan beskriva som ”ett tillstånd som väsentligen är en sidoeffekt” av olika former av utbildning, är det oklart om specialiserad utbildning i kritiskt tänkande är det mest ändamålsenliga sät-tet att framkalla kritiskt tänkande. Utifrån antagandet att utbildningen kan och ska forma en viss form av metapragmatisk reflektion, i vilken individen frigör sitt tänkande från de koordinater som är givna i ett visst sammanhang, vore den logiska inriktningen i pedagogiskt reformarbete vara att minimera de in-slag i utbildningen som motverkar denna frigörelse, exempelvis i form av me-kaniska och instrumentella undervisnings- och examinationsformer. Men om man betänker att metapragmatiska reflektioner per definition avviker från den praktik i vilken de uppstår (”vad är det egentligen vi håller på med?”) är det också möjligt att tydliga ramar för tänkande och handlande är lättare att för-hålla sig kritiskt till. Traditionell undervisning, med en tydlig inriktning mot reproduktion av etablerad kunskap, kan provocera fram en vilja att lämna det praktiska registret, vilket exempelvis visar sig när studenter utifrån egna ini-tiativ ställer läraren och undervisningsinnehållet till svars. Undervisningens i grunden konserverande praktik har i en sådan situation framkallat en otill-fredsställelse som leder till att den etablerade kunskapen frågas ut, en aktivitet

526 Jon Elster, Sour grapes : studies in the subversion of rationality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 60–66.

som rör sig mot kunskapens förnyelse.528 Ett alternativ till projektet att ut-veckla och förfina målet om kritiskt tänkande kan därmed vara att identifiera de mekanismer varigenom traditionell undervisning frammanar en sådan otill-fredsställelse. Om studenters benägenhet till metareflektion ska värnas fram-står det som särskilt angeläget att problematisera utbildningsmål som bestäm-mer vad utbildningen ska ha för effekter på mottagaren; när sådana mål är utpräglade och understödda av riktade pedagogiska aktiviteter stramas möj-ligheten till det oförutsedda tänkandet åt.

Jag har i denna avhandling valt att betrakta det kritiska tänkandet som ett motsägelsefullt mål. Med den analytiska inriktningen mot pedagogiska mot-sättningar möjliggörs studiet av utbildningsfenomen som är mer komplexa än de målstyrda praktiker som de som styr över utbildning ofta tycks ha som ideal. Utbildningens faktiska verklighet är inte enhetlig, utan motsägelsefull och föränderlig. Den dialektiska ansatsen i denna avhandling har varit ett sätt att synliggöra denna verklighet, genom studier av historiskt och socialt åt-skilda material. Den pedagogiska paradoxens båda sidor – å ena sidan målet om individens frigörelse från auktoritet och å andra sidan effektiviseringen av undervisningen genom förstärkandet av den pedagogiska auktoriteten – har alltid former som är bestämda av sitt särskilda sammanhang, och historise-ringen av sådana sammanhang bidrar till synliggörandet av dialektiken mellan dem. Samtidigt som varje pedagogisk praktik med nödvändighet reproducerar sitt sociala sammanhang, leder den, till följd av sin paradoxala konstitution, oundvikligen också till oförutsägbara transformationer, inte bara av sina mot-tagare, utan också av sig själv.

528 Se Kirsten Hyldgaard, ”What causes education?: anxiety and the object a”, i What is

educa-tion? : an anthology on education, red. Anton Bech Jørgensen m.fl. (København: Problema,

Summary: Critical thinking as an educational

goal. From modernist philosophy to policy for

higher education

The goal of critical thinking is often referred to in policies, research and prac-tices within contemporary higher education. It is considered a “key compe-tence” for future citizens by international organisations such as the OECD and the EU. The Swedish states uses the term critical thinking in political reports as to argue for educational reforms, and in higher education policy to describe learning outcomes. Universities talk of critical thinking when marketing stud-ies in diverse subjects; and there are even specialised university courses and textbooks dedicated to the goal of critical thinking. But as the goal of critical thinking is constantly enunciated in relation to the general educational objec-tive of self-sufficiency and individual freedom, an “educational paradox” emerges: How can students be governed not to be governed? This dissertation aims to understand the contradictions and inconsistencies of the goal of critical thinking, and the ways these contradictions have transformed the very idea of critical thinking in different contexts.

Previous research on education for critical thinking is characterised by two developments. On the one hand, there are pragmatic, empirical studies on teaching methods. These studies typically have an experimental design, with the purpose of reviewing the efficiency of educational interventions which aim to achieve certain goals, such as the forms of critical thinking defined by the American Psychological Association in 1990.529 On the other hand, there is also a theoretical development, in which such definitions are deconstructed and replaced by newer, more ambitious, and complex conceptions.530 While the former development aims to find educational technologies for controlling the events in the classroom, to direct them towards a specific outcome, the latter discourse justifies itself by invoking an ideal of liberation from such control. Both however fail to recognise the Kantian paradox in the heart of the educational goal of critical thinking: the student is to be liberated from author-ity and control by means of educational authorauthor-ity and control.

529 Facione, ”Critical thinking: A statement of expert consensus for purposes of educational assessment and instruction”.

530 E.g. Martin Davies and Ronald Barnett, The Palgrave handbook of critical thinking in

The pedagogical paradox actualised by the idea of education for critical thinking is here conceptualised as an agent of practical and theoretical contra-dictions, inconsistencies, and antagonisms, which may also lead to transfor-mations in pedagogical thinking. These contradictions and transfortransfor-mations are studied in four different contexts: 1) The neo-positivist concepts of “unified science” and general logic formulated in the 1930s, and their North American recontextualisation; 2) the Critical Thinking Movement and the institutionali-sation of the goal of critical thinking in American academia during the 1980s; 3) the policy of critical thinking in Swedish governmental investigations in 1968 and its aftermath; 4) contemporary university courses in critical thinking.

Theoretical conceptualisation and empirical material

The studies are informed by Luc Boltanski’s later writings on the sociology of critique and emancipation,531 which are read from the perspective of what could be called a “non-teleological dialectics.”532 Both Boltanski’s sociology and dialectical philosophy propose that contradictions immanent to the social reality should be the focal object of social analysis. The identification and analysis of inconsistencies in the structural logic of a particular social order enables us to make visible the forces that uphold, but also lead to antagonisms in and transformations of that order.

The educational goal of critical thinking generates a dialectic between cri-tique and ideology. Cricri-tique is here understood as activities within a metaprag-matic register of thinking and acting, activities which are not oriented towards the formal goals of a common practice, but which break out of such practices and shift their attention to the meaning of the practice itself. Ideology is the tacit persistence of a certain arbitrary order beneath the appearance of some rational logic. The dialectic manifests itself in two fields of pedagogical con-tradictions.

1) Critical ideas or practices found outside of the educational institution influence educational practices, which construct their own versions of critical activities, which can be described as tests. Ideas are thus materialised in cer-tain teachable procedures for questioning objects (critical thinking). But these materialisations tend to be compromises between the original idea and the in-terests structuring the educational context, and they are thus likely targets for incessant critique and reform.

2) Any form of test taught to students has to be implicitly or explicitly jus-tified in relation to a common idea, which provides a reference to some form of universality. Typical justifications for education are the ideas of the edu-cated individual (Bildung), the scientific innovation, and the political

531 Boltanski, On critique.

collective. In the singular educational practice multiple ideas coexist, since it comprises both subjective intentions (of teachers, students, and authors of lit-erature), and ideas which are “objectively” present in institutionalised materi-alisations (practices and discourse). The multiplicity of ideas produces par-tially contradictory ideals, which leads to immanent contradictions.

The empirical material studied in the dissertation consists of theoretical, pedagogical, and political texts on logical and critical thinking. Firstly, writ-ings by the German neo-positivist Rudolph Carnap and the American prag-matic philosophers Charles Morris and John Dewey are analysed, as these the-orists make up an important influence for early ideas of education for critical thinking in North America. Secondly, the institutionalisation and academisa-tion of critical thinking are traced in debates on critical thinking in the Cana-dian journal Informal logic. Thirdly, a political interpretation of the goal of critical thinking is studied in a Swedish context, in the form of governmental investigations and papers and reports written by educational experts. Fourthly, contemporary courses in critical thinking offered by Swedish universities are studied through an analysis of course documents and literature.

Language and validity: the pedagogisation of logical

empiricism

The first textbooks and courses in critical thinking, appearing in North Amer-ica at the end of the second world war, were oriented towards the philosophy of science and the logical analysis of arguments. This orientation becomes intelligible if we look at the theoretical influences upon the authors of such literature, which synthesises American pragmatism with logical positivism. This connection was established already in the 1930s, in the “Unity of sci-ence” movement which included both logical positivists and American prag-matists. Its meaning and consequences is traced in the writings by the Vienna circle member Rudolph Carnap, and the conception of the ideas of neo-posi-tivism in Charles Morris’ and Dewey’s writings in the Encyclopedia of Uni-fied Science, which was edited by the circle members in the USA.

Carnap’s program for a unified science (Einheitswissenschaft), paramount for the neo-positivism of the Vienna circle in general, is guided by the princi-ple of intersubjective understanding. Carnap’s point of departure was neo-Kantian epistemology, according to which the objective world cannot be grasped in itself, but only re-presented in understanding through an essentially socially determined synthesis of a manifold of sensations. This construction of a second order reality could be systemised according to formal rules shared by different scientific disciplines; the scientific community thus takes control over the social determination of the principles structuring synthetisation. Car-nap sees a possibility of such rules in scientific language, in the form of 1)

naturalistic reports of empirical observations of objects and 2) logical analysis (as developed by Frege and Russell) of the relations between classes of ob-jects. The scientific purification of language prevents obscure metaphysical speculation about the objective world in itself, which in unified science is re-placed by the empiricist construction of models based on a concept of validity (in relation to scientific rules) rather than “truth”.

In Morris’ pragmatic reading of the program of unified science, he points to the problem of the practical side of the purification of language. Morris argues that such a project would require that scientists received training in linguistics, and that every scientific discipline also developed its own special linguistic requirements for valid statements. While Carnap saw a possible di-vision of labour between philosophers of science, who work with the purifi-cation of scientific language, and the “real sciences” (Realwissenschaften) which follow the linguistic rules, Morris’ conception actualises the question of linguistic training as part of the scientific endeavour.

The educational question is further emphasised in Dewey’s reading. Dewey interprets the unity of science as a singular “scientific method” to be taught to everyone, beginning in schools. The applicability of this method is, for Dewey, not limited to the real sciences, but should also be “the sole method for dealing intellectually with all problems.”533 In practice, this means that the individual is equipped with a “scientific attitude”, in which outlooks for achieving certain goals are experimentally calculated, and the individual’s as-pirations and means for realising them are moderated accordingly. Dewey thought that the mechanisms in this process of subjective moderation – or, in other words, a privileging of the reality principle – could become the object of behavioural sciences that enable the educational institutions to direct sub-jective desires and interests towards reasonable goals.

Early textbooks on critical thinking, published in the years following the second world war, such as Max Black’s Critical thinking, are characterised by the bridging of scientific methodology and techniques for logical reasoning in everyday life. What is here dropped from the original philosophy of neo-pos-itivism is the principle of empiricism and the strict demarcation between im-personal scientific discourse and informal, value-laden discourse. The lan-guage of logic is simplified and individualised. Logical reasoning solves prac-tical problems and causes subjective enjoyment.

The belief in formal logical reasoning as a path to a good life, together with the abandonment of the neo-positivist principles of empiricism and naturalist language, also laid ground for the emergence of a new metaphysics of ration-ality within the analytical tradition in educational philosophy. Deweyan phi-losophers, such as Israel Scheffler and Harvey Siegel, spoke of the rational person in terms of “dignity”, “love”, and “truth”, a discourse in which Siegel was condensed in the concept of the “critical spirit.” The idea of science as a

unitary force in modernity thus merged with the very discourse whose defeat it, according to the neo-positivists, depended upon.

The institutionalisation of an educational goal: The

Critical Thinking Movement

In the 1980s, the goal of critical thinking became fully institutionalised in higher education, and an important agent in this process was the so-called Critical Thinking Movement (CTM). The movement emerged mainly from the Informal Logic Movement (ILM), a group of educators and philosophers engaged in college courses in argument analysis, often under the label “critical thinking”. The justification for developing this skill was the alleged risk of manipulation and indoctrination through mass media communication. The ILM can be described as a struggle for two partially opposed causes: as eve-ryday reasoning, on the one hand, needed to be clearer and more systematic, the language of formal logic, on the other, needed to be less abstract and rigid. The CTM made the educational interest in formalising everyday reasoning into a theoretical matter. Educators constructed models and taxonomies defin-ing the specific skills and dispositions involved in critical thinkdefin-ing, an endeav-our resulting in the 1990 American Philosophical Association consensus state-ment on the nature of critical thinking and its appropriate teaching methods. The ideas within the CTM were however far from unitary; the debates in jour-nal Informal logic can instead be characterised as a field of actors practically involved in education for critical thinking – mostly in the form of college courses in informal logic – who “academized” their experience by interpreting it in diverse philosophical, psychological, and educational perspectives. Yet, by constantly referring to the signifier “critical thinking”, the debates contrib-uted to the naturalisation and institutionalisation of the goal in the academic discourse on education.

While there was no real consensus on how to teach critical thinking, some theorists have been more productive and pragmatic (oriented towards the ac-tual practice of teaching and testing skills) than others, like Robert Ennis, Richard Paul and John McPeck. A common characteristic in their writings is the orientation towards utility: the critical thinker is a person who is able to approach and solve “problems” encountered in the flux of life. The educa-tional intervention functions by directing the student’s attention towards cer-tain problems, and providing tools for structuring and solving them. This means that the student is not only trained in logical or systematic thinking, but